Gluten Free Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia

I recently got back from a whirlwind trip trough Maryland, Northern Virginia and the eastern tip of West Virginia. I had gone down for the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam and extended the trip to tour a number of other national parks (I ended up visiting 13 of them, 10 I had never been to before).

Antietam National Battlefield

Before leaving on the trip, I took my own gluten free travel advice and mapped out the places I would be able to eat as well as the grocery stores along the way that cater to the gluten free community. I even brought along my toaster (although I ended up having Kinnikinnick donuts for breakfast most mornings).

My route took me from NJ through southern PA to Hagerstown, MD, I was in that area for three days then headed down to Manassas, VA for three days, before heading to Harper’s Ferry, WV for a day and finally back to the Hagerstown/Frederick area of MD.

I’ll be writing restaurant reviews over the next couple of days but wanted to list out some of my finds, including a handful of places I didn’t get to go:

Maryland / Virginia / West Virginia Gluten Free Supermarket / Grocery options

Common Market (Frederick, MD) – great GF selection and they even had Bavarian Toast Bread (which I haven’t seen in years!)

The Natural Marketplace in Warrenton, VA

Eden’s Natural Market (Gainesville, VA) – large health food shop with a good GF selection.

Healthway (VA/WV) – I didn’t get to stop here but this chain has a handful of locations across these two states.

Martin’s (MD, PA, VA and WV) – fairly sizeable GF section at this large supermarket chain.

MOM’s Organic Market (only in MD/VA) – good selection of GF products.

Natural Marketplace (Warrenton, VA) – small natural food store with a second floor juice bar/sandwich shop. Review coming soon.

Wegmans – I didn’t stop here but I suspect they are much the same all over.

Whole Foods – I also never stopped in a Whole Foods (they're only in eastern MD but I was near some in VA as well)..

Independent Gluten Free Dining options

Alcacia (Frederick, MD) - Bistro that flags GF items on their menu. Unsure on DF options. I almost ate here but they fell victim to me traveling alone. I decided to not eat out alone again that night and instead got take out. It looks like a great restaurant though.

Gambas al Pil Pil at Isabella's in Frederick, MD

Castiglia’s (Winchester, VA) – Italian restaurant with extensive GF menu, including GF bread crumbs, GF bread (manufacturer states bread may be contaminated), GF pizza, and GF pasta. Review coming soon.

Isabella’s Taverna and Tapas Bar (Frederick, MD) – the absolute highlight of the entire trip! Review: Gluten Free at Isabella's Taverna.

My Thai (Frederick, MD) – listed on other sites as having a GF menu. They don’t. However they were extremely accommodating. Review: Gluten Free at My Thai.

The Wild Tomato (Harrisburg, PA) – great GF menu at this Italian takeout restaurant. Sadly, no DF cheese.  Review coming soon.


Maryland/Virginia/West Virginia Gluten Free Chain Restaurants

Chick-fil-A – ate here a couple of times I needed a quick meal. (See my previous review here: Eating Gluten Free at Chick-fil-A)

Glory Days Grill – A mostly gluten friendly menu but they do have a dedicated fryer for gluten free fries! Review coming soon.

Logan’s Roadhouse – gluten friendly menu. Review coming soon.

Red Robin – serving GF / DF hamburger buns and some locations have a dedicated fryer. Review coming soon!

zPizza – pizza chain with both GF pizza crusts and DF cheese. I one night I was going to try them, it got too late for me to get there before they closed. I think they just opened (are about to open) a location or two in NYC. I’ll have to check them out soon.

There are also numerous locations of major chains we have here in NJ that I didn’t try during the trip (but it was nice to know they were there if I needed them): Bonefish Grill, Boston Market, Buffalo Wild Wings (almost nothing here is both GF and DF), Don Pablo’s, Longhorn, Outback, Pei Wei, Ruby Tuesday, and Uno Chicago Grill.

Gluten Free Bakeries

Better Choice Bakery (Brunswick, MD (small town on VA border, near Harper’s Ferry)) – small dedicated GF/DF bakery. Review coming soon.

Jireh Bakery Cafe (Centerville, VA) – I didn’t get to try here.

Triple Oak Bakery (Sperryville, VA) – dedicated GF bakery. No mention online of DF options. I didn’t stop here.

Ok, time to start cracking on those nine new reviews!

Event Review: Appetite For Awareness (Philadelphia, PA)

I just got home a short while ago from Appetite for Awareness. [Note, I wrote this last night, added the photos and published this morning.]  I drove down down with a friend of mine (also gluten free, but not fully dairy free) and had a great time sampling the products and restaurant offerings, viewing two cooking demos, watching the NFCA award ceremony for Michael from Gluten Free Philly [if you live in south Jersey, the Philly area or Delaware you should be following his blog], and meeting Erin who writes Gluten Free Fun [an NYC GF blog], writes Gluten Free Globetrotter [a world travel GF blog], and organizes the NYC Celiac Meetup. 

Michael from Gluten Free Philly
accepting his award from the NFCA

There were over 40 vendors and  almost 30 restaurants.  I'll touch on some of the highlights below but keep in mind, since I am dairy free as well I skipped those vendors/restaurants that didn't have anything both GF and DF.  I good number of those I skipped do have dairy free products or menu items (they just didn't have them with them).  As always it was nice to see Udi's and Pamela's but neither had their new product lines with them - once I see those new items in stores I'll be sure to review them.  The full list of vendors and restaurants is on the NFCA website here:  http://www.celiaccentral.org/a4a/.  On to the highlights:



• The show highlight: dense crusty bagels from SweetNote Bakery.  Sadly these aren't in stores (yet?), but they are available commercially to deli's and other restaurants that want to offer their diners a gf/df bagel option.  Their website has a list of where around the Philadelphia area you can get these.

Gluten Free / Dairy Free Bagel samples from SweetNote Bakery

• Casona of Collingswood, NJ was serving an amazing tuna ceviche on a round corn tostada.  Amazing!  This is one of the restaurants on my GF Restaurant list that I have been dying to try.  After tasting this, I need to make an excuse to drive two hours to Collingswood!

• Pasta Pomodoro (Voorhees, NJ) had an amazing GF (and mostly DF) spread as well.  They had a crepe with sweet potato filling and a crab guacamole.  They are also on my short list of must try NJ GF restaurants!

Vegan / Gluten Free Cheesesteak and
GF/Vegan Pizza Crackers from Jar Bar

• Imagine a 100% gluten free and dairy free restaurant and you'd have Jar Bar (ok, technically they're vegan and raw as well but since I can't really handle egg that works for me!)  They had an amazing chocolate mousse (made with avocado which you'd never taste) and both a gf/vegan cheese steak as well as a gf/df pizza (both served at the event on Jar Bar's own flax crackers).  This is a restaurant I'd love to try next time I'm in Philly (even though I love tasty animals)!

• Grandma's Grotto (Horsham, PA) had six different types of cookies (only two were DF), gf meatballs (sadly with dairy) and a pasta dish with chicken and vegetables (dairy free and without tomato sauce).  The snickerdoodle I had was great and I'm glad I picked up a menu.  They offer a tri-fold gluten free menu at their restaurant and even have pre-made frozen items available. 

PB&J bites on Gluten Free Quinoa Bread from Taffets

• Taffets All Gluten Free Bakery and Shop was sampling a number of their breads and cookies (all breads are DF as well).  The bread was really good; and this is another spot I'll try the next time I'm in Philly.

• I also got to catch up with Christine from Sweet Rubino's.  Her specialty Italian cookies are gluten free, corn free, dairy free, soy free and refined sugar free (some are vegan as well).  I'm looking forward to these being available in stores.  (Which hopefully will be soon!)

• 1-2-3 Gluten Free mixes aren't new but I was interested to find out that each of their mixes has dairy free modifications / recipes printed inside the box (the mixes themselves are already dairy free).  (I also like that they prepared one of their four samples using that recipe so those of us who are DF could try them too!)

• Sadly, Pure Tacos wasn't serving anything dairy free today but I did want to mention them since both their Ocean City, NJ and Philadelphia, PA locations are 100% gluten free!

You'd think at this point I'd be in a food coma and wouldn't want to think about more GF food but I'm already gearing up for Sunday's Colin Leslie Walk for Celiac Disease (both the outdoor walk, and the walk around the vendor's hall)!

If I missed any GF/DF options yesterday, feel free to share what I missed in the comments below!

Website Review: Gluten Free Philly

This is my first website review. I do follow a number of blogs but most of them are national in scope (although I did somehow end up following Gluten Free Maui)! There are even a couple that are international (and marry my love of travel and all things GF)!

Independence Hall in Philadelphia, PA

Gluten Free Philly covers all things gluten free in the Philadelphia metro area and that includes quite a bit of south Jersey. In addition to regular news updates, they have restaurant reviews (including quite a few in NJ) and they maintain a giant list of area restaurants. This list contains a wide range of ability from those that are just gluten aware all the way to those with full blown gluten free menus. (The site is GF but not DF so you’ll need to make sure if you need DF as well.)

The author, Michael, is also a board member of the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness and is on top of all of the latest national gluten free news and product launches. He does a weekly News and Notes article that is very informative and contains the latest updates to his restaurant list.

If you live (or regularly eat) in south Jersey/the Philly area, I highly recommend this site!


Some Philly area restaurant reviews you may enjoy:

Gluten Free at PB&U

Gluten Free at Pei Wei

Event Review: Celiac Awareness Tour: Philadelphia

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Celiac Awareness Tour’s stop in Philadelphia, PA (technically, King of Prussia, PA). There were a number of featured speakers throughout the event but the real treat (at least for me) is always the vendors.

There were over two dozen vendors in attendance. There were some old standbys: Udi’s, Kinnikinnick, Conte’s, Caesar’s, Allergen Free Foods, and Bakery on Main. As well as some local stores/restaurants to the Philly area. (I obviously skipped any vendors that were only offering dairy containing products/samples.) The stand outs from the show were:

Rudi’s Gluten Free - they recently launched very thin sandwich wraps/tortillas. The gentleman manning the booth, demonstrated rolling the wraps without breaking them and how much effort it took to break them up to sample. I’ll definitely be trying these as soon as they are available near me and comparing them to my current favorite wrap.

Daiya Dairy Free Cheese

Daiya Dairy Free Cheese - I had previously seen Daiya’s new products in Wegmans but hadn’t yet bought them. Big mistake! Daiya has managed to produce a block of cheese that can be eaten like real cheese (i.e. without broiling first). They’re called Daiya Wedges and I tried both the cheddar and the Jalapeno Garlic Havarti (kind of spicy) and was amazed. Now, just like other ‘cheese’ substitutes these have little nutritional value (i.e. no calcium, limited protein) but if you are looking to do cheese and crackers plate or and a garnish to a salad cubing up these products can fit the bill. (All three are gluten free, dairy free, vegan, soy free, egg free, peanut free, nut free (contains coconut).) [I’ll be publishing an article shortly with a head-to-head comparison of Vegan Gourmet vs. Daiya Dairy Free Cheeses.]

New Planet Gluten Free Beer (Ale)

New Planet Gluten Free Beer - they were sampling their three beers: Tread Lightly Ale, Off Grid Pale Ale, and 3R Raspberry Ale. I tried the Raspberry just to report back (unfortunately, I can’t handle carbonation either) and it was quite good. If I could drink beer, I would certainly have this again.

Finally, I got to briefly meet Michael from Gluten Free Philly. GF Philly is an amazing resource and one of the blogs I follow. I’ve got a review of the site scheduled shortly, but in the mean time, if you are anywhere near Philly, I highly recommend checking the site out.

After the conference I took a quick tour of Valley Forge and then stopped at PB&U for lunch. PB&U is a quick serve Peanut Butter sandwich restaurant. So far they have locations in Wayne, PA and Moorestown, NJ. That review is also coming shortly too!

For more upcoming gluten free events don't forget to check out my Gluten Free Event Calendar.